


Hands and Whispers

by ThatWriterKid



Series: Tumblr Ficlets [2]
Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Anxious Aziraphale (Good Omens), Anxious Crowley (Good Omens), Awkward Romance, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Slow Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-12
Updated: 2020-03-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:01:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23120656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatWriterKid/pseuds/ThatWriterKid
Summary: Crowley has a serpent whispering in his ear.He and Aziraphale can barely stand the touch of hands.A small collection of not-quite-micro ficlets from micro-prompts.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Tumblr Ficlets [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1661779
Comments: 3
Kudos: 32





	1. Trembling Hands

**Author's Note:**

> This is from a list of micro-prompts on Tumblr that I've long since lost. Chapter titles are the prompts the works are based off of.

It started slowly: an accidental brush of skin when Aziraphale reached for Crowley’s untouched-til-then dessert, a grazing of the shoulders when they drifted close while walking and never course-corrected. It was the angel who started to take advantage of this, who initiated the hands that rested on shoulders, the reassuring touches when the trauma got to be too much.

Crowley didn’t complain. Not at first. 

Then the touch itself became too much. The warmth of Aziraphale’s skin started, metaphorically, to burn. Six thousand years of pulling back, of respecting boundaries he knew Aziraphale never wanted to set–it would be so easy to break those barriers now. But six thousand years was a long time, and Crowley couldn’t read minds. Knowing where the line had been didn’t mean he knew where it was now. 

So it was Aziraphale, eventually who reached out with a trembling hand to take Crowley’s in his. And it was Crowley who, aching to his core, pulled his hand away.

“Don’t.”

“I’m sorry. I thought–”

“I don’t know what’s allowed,” said Crowley. His voice was hoarse, echoing the desperation it had held at the end of the world. “I don’t know where the line is.”

Aziraphale reached out and took his hand. Their fingers tangled together. Angel and demon alike were shaking.

“Do you trust me, my dear?” Crowley wasn’t the type to answer aloud, but they knew each other well enough for Aziraphale to understand the silence. “I thought so. I don’t know either, you know. I have no idea where the line is. But you can trust me not to cross it.”

Neither of them spoke for a while.

Neither of them let go. 


	2. Harsh Whisper

There’s a very _specific_ portrayal of himself Crowley cannot stand. It’s one of the serpent ones, where he’s wrapped around the tree (or worse, around Eve, usually with some lecherous look on his face), and he’s whispering Vile Things in her ear. That’s not how it happened. He was _next_ to her, for one thing, and yeah, he was whispering in her ear, but–

It’s the _things_ they attribute to him. There’s Vile Things, Trademark Hell, and then there’s _vile things_ , the nasty stuff, the stuff only humans could come up with. Crowley hadn’t been whispering about bloodlust, or even regular lust. He hadn’t whispered about larceny or fraud or capitalism.

He’d whispered about choices. That was it. Choices. Knowledge. Good and evil.

What was so wrong with that?

It had bothered him for centuries. It bothered him worse when he started hearing whispers.

Small ones, when it started. His own voice, in the back of his mind: _you’re obsolete_ , they said at the beginning. _Humans have your job done for you._ And later, when it got worse, and the whispers were louder, _this is all your fault._

After the Apocalypse doesn’t happen, Crowley hopes they’ll stop. He really does. But they don’t, and sometimes they’re louder than ever. _You don’t deserve this. You don’t deserve him. You don’t deserve the world._ They’re loud enough to wake him up some nights, loud enough to make his body freeze up and his eyes shoot open, loud enough to slip past his lips in a quiet whimper. Loud enough for Aziraphale to hear.

The angel rolls over and places his hand on Crowley’s chest. His voice is dream-soft, fuzzy with sleep and domesticity. “Are you being cruel to yourself again, dear?”

Crowley nods.

“Do you need someone to be kind to you?”

It’s hard to hear the whispers, with Aziraphale’s hand on his chest, with the warm body next to him in the bed. Crowley’s been able to handle it on his own, of course. He’s handled it on his own for thousand of years. But it’s easier–so much easier–to remember he’s worthy of love when someone loves him. 

“Better now,” he says.

The whispers never go away. Not completely. But they’re quiet for a while, and they were never grounded in the truth to begin with. 


End file.
